Why are open source models and movements so powerful? Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, discussed the advantages of open models. In this case, open source movements. Open source movements have several powerful advantages that learning organizations and churches could leverage.

One advantage of the open learning system is that it highly tolerant of failure. Open source reduces the cost of failure because so many ideas are brought to the table.

“…open source relies on the ‘publish-then-filter’ pattern. In traditional organizations, trying anything is expensive, even if just in staff time to discuss the idea, so someone must make some attempt to filter the successes from the failures in advance. In open systems, the cost of trying something is so low that handicapping the likelihood of success is often an unnecessary distraction.”

The typical organization is limited because the number of ideas that an organization or church can consider can come from only a limited number of sources, usually the bosses, managers, and consultants.

A great deal of thought must be put into the consideration of ideas because the time and cost of failure are so high. Time spent with meetings, staff training, and materials, has a cost. This means the filter for ideas is very high. Only those ideas that seem to have the most benefit will be implemented, though there is no way to know in advance that one of the ideas picked will bring the desired benefit, and one of the ideas left on the table could be the most effective and beneficial.

The Open Learning Organization draws ideas from a greater number of sources, including the people it serves. A wider net is cast for ideas, more ideas are implemented, and the ones that work will receive more resources, while the ones that fail can be quickly dropped. Because resources are only directed at proven ideas, this model essentially allows failure to cost nothing. Failure for free. But the chance of coming upon a better idea is increased due to the shear number of sources and ideas to be learned from.

“Open system, by reducing the cost of failure, enable their participants to fail like crazy, building on the successes as they go.”

The open system has the advantage of exploring multiple possibilities.

“…the idea is that for any problem or goal, there is a vast area of possibilities to explore but few valuable spots within that environment to discover. When a company or indeed any organization finds a strategy that works, the drive to adopt it and stick with it is strong. Even if there is a better strategy out there, finding is can be prohibitively expensive.”

The Open Learning System, or Clay Shirky’s open system, allow for many more participants, lowers the filtering of ideas, and is much more tolerant of failure because of the flexibility of the system. Ideas that fail are dropped instantly, and new ones adopted. It would be hard to say that failed ideas are dropped as quickly in education. Usually failed ideas have personnel attached to them, resources that have been purchased, and possibly even capital costs. This makes ideas difficult to drop on a dime.

Further because the Open Learning Model allows participants from many areas to participate, the chances of great ideas and solutions are increased.

Websites like Innocentive.com open problems up to others learn from each other to help solve and give cash rewards. Saddleback Church says to its member, if you have an idea, let’s do it. They offer help where they can, but they allow the member to come up with and implement the idea. Learning from it’s own members. One member had an idea for a ministry from people struggling with addictions. That ministry has become a worldwide ministry called Celebrate Recovery. Other ideas went nowhere and failed. But in learning from many sources of ideas and having a low filter, they hit upon one of the most successful and powerful ministry ideas ever.

The Closed System does not tolerate failure, therefore restricting the quality and quantity of ideas and the chance for a superior idea. The Open Learning System is much more tolerant of failure because the organization or church learns from a greater number of ideas which enables a greater chance of finding the superior idea. It's at the heart of a learning organization and a learning church.

May 11, 2011

Technology and church services have a history of moving from one screen to the next.

TheFirst Screen was the movie screen. People gathered in the public space of the movie theater to see the world presented to them through the lens of the movie camera. History and entertainment were all brought to the big screen. People, together in public, were able to laugh, cry, cringe, cheer, and share emotions together.

Just as moviegoers watch together, so too, do those who attend a church service. Both require the people come to a location. Both function off a set schedule. A both limit their offerings. Choice, time, and location are all limitations of the First Screen and the church service.

The Second Screen was the television screen. People were connected to the outside world through a menu of television programs. People could learn about the world around them and talk about what they were watching. Television was able to reach more people. Those people required a greater variety of programming. But, instead of sharing the screen with the public, the Second Screen was shared in privacy of the home alone or with family and friends. Strangers were not part of the Second Screen experience like it was in the First Screen experience.

Watching church services on television required a person to be in front of their television in a fixed location at a certain time. While television increased the choice and variety of its offerings compared to the movie screen, the content was still decided upon by others. Experts controlled the programming of which churches or pastors you were able to watch in your home.

The Third Screen was the computer screen. The computer screen changed the way we work and play. The Internet allowed people from all over the world to pursue their particular interests and to form virtual communities on-line.

The Third Screen allowed people access to more information than they could have imagined. It opened up access to new types of media and allowed people to participate in creating, capturing, sharing, and comment on all types of media. But, though they belonged to “communities” they were still virtual communities. The Third Screen experience was happening in virtual space, not touch space.

This is church online. Most people settle down in front of their desktops or laptops and watch the service as it is streamed to them from points across the globe.

Choice has never been greater and the ability to participate in the creation, consumption, commenting on, or collection of media is available to many.

The Third Screen seemed to be the penultimate in screen evolution. However, the Third Screen Participants of online churches are still limited to access to the Internet access, either hard-wired or wireless. The Third Screen is limited to virtual community—no true person-to-person interaction. Virtual space will never match touch space in the most powerful aspect of human interaction.

The Fourth Screen is the screen you take with you. The Fourth Screen allows the user to leave the private and take the virtual community out into our actual community. The Fourth Screen allows the users to take advantage of the ability to create, share, collect, and connect, with their virtual and real community simultaneously.

Users can be in public, but still be at church. They can exist in both virtual space and touch space. They can introduce their virtual community to their touch space community. And it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Choice, unbound by time and geography, accomplished with portable technology.

As video becomes a more pervasive and accepted part of our lives and the technology of video instant messaging and live streaming video continues to grow more powerful and more portable. The ability to connect via portable technology allows church services to take place anywhere that is meaningful and convenient for churchgoers.

A church service can be literally carried out of our private spaces and into our public spaces. Virtual spaces carried out into actual spaces—carried in our pockets.

April 18, 2011

If the Church is to reach the world, we are going to need thousands of new churches. In the United States alone, reports suggest that we will need 2500-3000 new churches a year to keep up with population growth.

This creates a resulting need for thousands of new leaders who can lead these churches and the ministries that serve them. But, are we limiting our leadership search to a small leadership pool? With the demand for new leaders so clear, can we afford to leave any leaders behind?

Typically, the approach is to look for seminary graduates and those with high leadership experience and high ministerial training.

What Saddleback Church has realized is that this approach limits the potential pool of leadership talent.

What about all the rest? Could not effective church and ministry leaders be found in these other pools?

We are ignoring sea of potential leaders, who, with the right training, mentoring, and experiences, could be developed into strong ministry leaders.

With such a high need for future leaders, we cannot afford to ignore this vast pool of potential leaders.

With this in mind, Saddleback Church created the Saddleback Church Leadership Academy to reach out to those with a calling, heart, and potential to lead ministries and churches. Their goal is to expand the potential pool of leadership talent by creating unique leadership development paths that equip, encourage, and mentor these future leaders.

Their method is to provide an opportunity for participants to engage and learn in the context of “doing the work”, not more classes. Tacit learning in context.

So many future church and ministry leaders have a mistaken perception that they are not qualified for ministry and do not pursue their calling. But this is a mistaken perception and one that is limiting the potential pool of future leaders to those who attended certain colleges, received degrees in certain majors, or who have been working in ministry.

By expanding the view of who has the potential to become a church planter or ministry leader, what Saddleback Church has found is that students of all majors and degrees bring unique leadership skills, insight, energy, and knowledge that is invaluable to ministries and churches.

For instance, current Leadership Academy participants have backgrounds or majors in:

Communications

Music

Psychology

Art

Finance

Public Relations

English Literature

Culinary Arts

Biology

Business

Physical Education

Accounting

Political Science

Graphic Design

Film

Liberal Studies

Journalism

Education

It’s not about having a certain degree or even graduating from a certain college. It’s about calling.

Future leaders need a calling to lead a ministry at an existing church, plant a church, or a new campus of an existing church.

If one wants to learn how to lead a church or a ministry, the best way to accomplish that is to be in residency or as an apprentice with current church or ministry leaders. Learning in context and in community with other learners.

Over the course of a year, using a “gradual release” method, “Leadership-Mentor Faculty” walk alongside residents and apprentices; gradually releasing them to greater leadership roles, responsibilities, and opportunities. Embedded in this experience is a weekly gathering where students get "nuts-and-bolts" strategies, methods, and systems instruction.

While not discounting the role of seminary, in fact they encourage it, they don’t see it as a pre-requisite to leadership. The goal is to open the opportunity to become a church or ministry leader to a greater pool of potential leaders to meet the leadership needs for thousands of new churches.

Some recent lifewayresearch.com seems to support the view that experience is viewed as more important than seminary education in hiring decisions of churches.

The Saddleback Church Leadership Academy believes they can harness the gifts, talents, and abilities of these future leaders through a very intentional and practical “hands-on” ministry leader apprenticeship experience.

Their apprenticeship utilizes a “Leading-Learning-Mentoring” paradigm.

Developing leadership skills while learning to lead one of Saddleback Church’s ministries.

Learning methods and strategies directly from Saddleback pastors and staff while “doing the work.”

Mentoring by Saddleback pastors.

Avenue and opportunities to get hands-on ministry leadership training and development in context.

Blending their explicit learning with contextual tacit learning.

Growing in a community of fellow future leaders.

The Saddleback Church Leadership Academy seeks to equip, empower, and encourage individuals to pursue their ministry leadership calling.

March 22, 2011

In the Thin Walled church- Learning takes place in multiple locations, venues, and times- Real Space and Digital Space- on-demand and “just-in-time.”

A Thin Walled church designs with Mobile, Global, and Local in mind at all times.

A Thin Walled church increases choice of- time, location, delivery, and content.

Thinning the walls is developing an Internet campus and going to the Cloud. Thin Walled churches enable services MON-SUN, anytime, and delivered anywhere.

Thin Walled churches make it easy to share knowledge, wisdom, and insight among teams inside AND among other churches, fields, and professions outside.

A Thin Walled church gets new ideas from internal and external sources. These ideas are free to be explored and lead to organic innovation due to a loose organizational structure—thin walls between teams, departments, staff, and leaders.

Thin Walled churches value social learning values and reciprocity. Thin Walled churches share through the network. The network remembers if you helped someone learn. The thin walls in networks know...If you didn't they remember that too.